


Kingdom Fall

by DevinBourdain



Series: Kingdom Fall [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Baggage, grief fuelled decision making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinBourdain/pseuds/DevinBourdain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John picked the gun up from the table; it felt unnaturally heavy in his hand, the way he imagined it would feel in Dean's little hands tomorrow. It was almost enough to make him second guess his choice, but he had seen too much, learned more than he was capable of ignoring if he just walked away from hunting, from revenge. John ponders his decision to bring Dean into the life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kingdom Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Supernatural characters are not mine, just borrowed for this story.
> 
> Reviews are always welcome and appreciated

 

Sam.

Little Sammy.

The name rolled off of John's alcohol heavy tongue, barely causing waves through the silence of the motel room.

Samuel Winchester: Youngest son of John and Mary and more recently just of John. Between hunting and the road, John's whole life had suddenly become about little Sam. Sam was the last precious gift Mary had given to the world, the last piece he had of his apple pie life before darkness had descended to strangle his family. Even the boy's name was a part of Mary, chosen after her father. The last thing Mary had done was try to protect Sammy from the evil that had invaded their loving home. While her death was tragic and inexcusable, the only thing that could offer it meaning was that she was trying to protect her youngest, a job now solely tasked to John. Finding the thing, killing the evil that had taken his wife would protect the tattered remains of his family. It would fill the constant ache in his heart as he watched his youngest fulfill each life milestone without his mother's watchful eye and validate his wife's sacrifice. Keeping Sam safe from everything that went bump in the night was the only way to offer some meaning to the senseless death.

And Dean.

Dean was destined to be the casualty of circumstance. John's other little piece of Mary was the child that made him a father, but Sam had made them a family. There was no question that he loved Dean, he'd go to hell and back for the kid, but hunting was a hard life and John had no delusions about what the outcome would be. Someone had to be there to protect Mary's sacrifice in his absence and Dean was the only person he could trust with the task. The only other soul that could ever be invested in Sam's survival the way he was. It meant Dean would suffer, grow up bloody and cold, but there wasn't anyone else. Evil had forced its way into their lives, their home and stole Mary; he was never going to let any of them be unprepared again. That was the real mission now: to keep the boys safe and if that meant killing every evil son of a bitch out there, then so be it. There was a special place in hell for him, John was sure, to sacrifice one child's happiness and replace it with the savage and warlike existence he was about to force on his oldest son, one who by all rights should be told that the monster under the bed was imaginary, not that it was real and if you didn't get it, it was going to get you.

The amber dim of the ratty motel room was claustrophobic and the bottle of whisky John had pulled out of his bag after his boys had gone to sleep did nothing to numb the feeling. They were hard to look at when they were sleeping and yet he couldn't take his eyes off the boys. There was an innocence that washed over Dean and Sam when they slept, one that by rights should have been theirs for years to come. It stayed with little Sammy when he was awake, diminished slightly by the revolving door of makeshift homes each week brought. However the moment Dean woke up and fruitlessly glanced around for his mother, the spark of sweet naive innocence washed away. John hated himself for that and even more for wanting to take advantage of that now. He had waivered back and forth on the idea, ideal crushing under the weight of reality. And as October gave way to November, his resolve hardened. Perhaps it was the booze rather than memory that put the notion in his head, but grief had locked it in.

It was easier to let his guard down around Sam; the small boy had no expectations, no comparisons from before. Just six months old, Sammy had little idea that anything had really changed within the family following Mary's death. Any indication that he missed her presence had faded as quickly as John's hope for the future. Dean was harder. Plagued by nightmares long after, knew exactly what the world had lost when his mother was stolen from them. It was hard to offer comfort and reassuring words in the dead of night to a terrified four year old when all John really wanted to do was curl up with a bottle and try to pretend that the bad things didn't exist. But the moment that had truly broke him and made putting that wedge between him and Dean easier (through no fault of Dean's) was in the aftermath of a nightmare, where John was trying his hardest to sooth the sobbing child, Dean had declared, "Mommy always sings to me after a nightmare. She could always make the bad thing disappear." It was nothing more than a child's observation, a hopeful plea for his father to make the monsters slip back in the shadows until dawn, but all John could hear was accusation. He was never going to be enough, hadn't been enough to protect them from this and now there was no one to sing lullabies and make soup and find missing socks.

John's hand tightened around his glass, hoping the cold whiskey inside could cool his anger. He'd made up his mind and putting it off wasn't going to keep his family safe. He glanced at the gun sitting on the table with distaste. He was going to put a weapon in the hands of a six year old boy and mold him into the perfect killing machine under the guise of keeping his brother safe. It was a decision that there would be no coming back from; destroy one to save the other, but at least they would both be alive. He could dress it up however he wanted, train Dean so he could protect both himself and Sammy because the bad things were coming, but really he was taking away his oldest son's innocence to countermand his failure as a father. Dean would be the final defence in keeping Sam safe.

He turned to look at the boys asleep in the beds of yet another cheap motel room, no place to call home or a familiar bed to lay their weary heads. It was the last night Dean would sleep easy before John would start making him the perfect soldier, just a pawn in a war that had spilled into their house two years ago. Even the alcohol couldn't change the sentiment from doing it to Dean to doing it for Dean and he hated himself a little more for it, but he was out of options. Hunting the monster that killed his wife was going to require a conviction John couldn't offer if he was always worrying about the boys. They needed to be able to defend themselves, Dean had to learn to protect Sam with everything in John's arsenal.

He picked the gun up from the table; it felt unnaturally heavy in his hand, the way he imagined it would feel in Dean's little hands tomorrow. It was almost enough to make him second guess his choice, to call the whole thing off and just let the boys try and salvage what they could of their childhood. But John had seen too much and learned more than he was capable of ignoring if he just walked away from hunting, from revenge. The darkness stole his wife, the only way he could be certain Mary's boys wouldn't suffer the same fate, was to kill the thing that killed her before it had a chance to snatch what was left of their family. In the end, he just wasn't strong enough to walk away, wasn't strong enough to leave the boys somewhere and walk away from them either.

He had no choice, he needed an ally in his war and selfishly he wanted Dean. It wasn't some noble quest to allow Dean to avenge his mother and hell, if he really wanted to protect the boys he could lock all of them up in a room with a cache of weapons and food and wait out all the evil in the world. No John couldn't stand doing nothing, he needed revenge, it wasn't anything more than pure selfishness that was going to put that gun in Dean's little hands tomorrow. And god he hoped Dean was horrible with it; let fate correct the heinous mistake he was about to make.

John downed the rest of his glass and proceeded to polish off the rest of the bottle as he stubbornly waited out the night before morning helped him steal something else from his oldest boy. He burned the picture of the sleeping boys in his head, framing it with lies about being able to go back to this when it was all over, when the last evil thing screeched its death song to the world and the Winchesters could know peace. Perhaps the biggest lie was that the corruption of Dean's soul would keep the boys safe. John had no illusions that willingly seeking out the evils of the world was dangerous, would probably cost him his life, but if Dean could be trained, then Sam and Dean would survive. He owed it to Mary to make sure the boys survived.

* * *

 

The knock at the door came right as scheduled, John stumbling to the door. He cracked the door, eyes straining against the early morning light to reveal a less than impressed looking teenager.

"Dale sent me here to look after Sam," she huffed, stepping into the motel room. "Dad says hi, by the way, sorry he couldn't be in town to personally give you a hand." The girl glanced around the room, looking unimpressed. "You're like old war buddies or something right?"

"Yeah," John replied, closing the door. There had been many 'helpful' people he'd met since crossing the threshold from normal to supernatural, but most he would trust to watch over his kids. In moments of need, he found calling in favors from the past worked best, even if in this case it was the teenage daughter of an old friend. It was daylight, in a relatively safe little town and it would only be for a couple of hours. The fact that Dale had boasted about Hayleigh being a national taekwondo champ had solidified his resolve to leave Sam in her care for the morning.

John motioned to the dilapidated couch as he moved over to the bed where his babies were sleeping. His hand shook as it hovered over Dean's still form. Time stood still as he searched for any reason not to do this that would satisfy his insatiable hunger for revenge; he came up empty.

"Time to get up buddy. Brush your teeth and get dressed, you and I have to go somewhere," encouraged John, gently rubbing Dean's back to rouse him out of bed.

"Alright Daddy," Dean mumbled struggling to extract himself from the covers. "Where are we going?"

A fake smile worked its way across John's face. With false cheer he said, "We're going to go for a hike out to the backcountry and I'm going to teach you something real important." The excited flare that lit up the boy's eyes made him sick to his stomach. Today Dean Winchester was going to stop being a happy-go-lucky little boy and become another tool in his father's quest to justify Mary's sacrifice. Though he wanted more for his boy, he knew the universe was stacked against them. The part that really killed him, was the fact that he knew Dean would take it all in stride and be whatever was asked of him if his father was doing the asking. Anything for Daddy. He only hoped that when they finally killed this thing, Dean would be able to forgive him.

Dean glanced over at Sam snoring softly on the pillow next to him. "What about Sammy?"

"I got him a sitter. It's just you and me today buddy." John hated the false positivity that painted his words, like they were going to take in a ballgame or learn how to ride a bike; real father son bonding. Lying to his son shouldn't come as easily as it did. He had to fight back the tears as he choked out, "I'm going to teach you something real important today."

"I'll do a real good job, you'll see. I promise." Dean beamed all the more, hurrying to finish the task set before him so he could start enjoying his day with his father.

"I bet you will son." John knew he would never be able to forgive himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who read this story.
> 
> BIG thanks to Midnightmoonwarrior for the amazing beta job
> 
> This started as an idea for a one shot, but I do have a few ideas for connected stories to this passage if there's anyone is interested in more.


End file.
